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Warning for BlackBerry Forensics

BlackBerry devices come with password protection. The owner has the capability to protect all data on the phone with a password. The user may also specify the amount of attempts for entering the password before wiping all data from the device.

If you exceed your password attempts limit (defaults to 10, but you can set it as low as 3), you will be prompted one last time to type the word BlackBerry.

The device will then wipe. It will be reset to the factory out-of-the-box condition (default folder structure), and the password reset. You will lose everything in the device memory, with no possibility of recovery. It will not reformat the microSD card, since that's not part of the factory configuration. The phone will still be usable, and the operating system will be unchanged. So this technique cannot be used to roll back from an OS upgrade problem.

Obviously this is a serious problem if you need to perform forensics on the device. The best work around is to work with the owner of the device and hopefully get them to disclose the password.

Acquiring BlackBerry Backup File (.ipd)

1. Open Blackberry’s Desktop Manager
2. Click “Options” then “Connection Settings”
4. Select “USB-PIN: 2016CC12” for connection
5. Click “Detect”, then it should show a dialog box saying it found the device
6. Click "OK" to return to the main menu
7. Double click “Backup and Restore”
8. Click "Backup"
9. Save the .ipd file

10. Open BlackBerry Desktop Manager. If there are no Outlook profiles created there will be a prompt on how to create one. Click OK to continue. If the BlackBerry xxxx Simulator has properly connected to the BlackBerry Desktop Manager, Connected should be displayed at the bottom of the BlackBerry Desktop Manager window. Refer to Figure BS-2 for further reference.

12. Navigate to the directory where an .ipd file that has been previously backed up is stored and select Open to load that file to the Simulator. See the Acquiring BlackBerry Backup File section above on information on how to backup a physical BlackBerry.

Acquisition with Paraben's Device Seizure

As an alternative to acquiring the Blackberry through Amber Blackberry Converter, Paraben's Device Seizure is a simple and effective method to acquire the data. The only drawback, is that this method takes significantly more time to acquire than using Amber Blackberry Converter.

1. Create a new case in Device Seizure with File | New.

2. Give the case a name and fill in any desired information about the case on the next two screens. Nothing is actually required to be entered. The third screen is a summary of the data entered. If all data is correct click Next and then Finish.

3. You are now ready to acquire the phone. Go to Tools | Data Acquisition.

4. You are prompted for the supported manufacturer. Select RIM Blackbery (Physical).

5. Leave supported models at the default selection of autodetect.

6. Connection type should be set to USB.

7. For data type selection select Logical Image (Databases).

8. Confirm your selections on the summary page and click Next to start the acquisition.

Blackberry Protocol

Here is a useful link to the Blackberry Protocol as documented by Phil Schwan, Mike Shaver, and Ian Goldberg. The article goes into great description of packet sniffing and the protocol as it relates to data transfer across a USB port.